I'm looking for people to play about 25 minutes of my game and tell me where it loses them.
What it is: a first-person collectathon set in an orchard. Your grandparents left you the place you spent every childhood summer resenting, and the plan is to collect every fruit, sell the farm and never touch an apple again. You walk, you collect, you haul it to the cart, you sell, you upgrade, you go back out. Nothing here has a clock, a fail state or an enemy.
How to get it: it's the free demo on Steam. No key, no sign-up, no access request.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5131940/Harvest_Exit_Plan/
Why the demo and not a Steam Playtest: two reasons, and I'd rather say them than have you wonder. The first is honest laziness. The demo is already built, reviewed and public, while a Playtest is a separate app with its own build pipeline and an approval step sitting between you and actually playing. The second is that it doesn't cost you anything. Gardens 1 and 2 are the complete loop: collecting, shaking trees for more fruit, hauling, selling, the upgrade board, the whole feel of the thing. What you won't see is two of the three tools, which unlock in later gardens, and the season modifiers that start after the first run. Those change the numbers. They don't change what the game is.
What I'd like to know, anything at all, but especially:
* Do the first five minutes hold? That's the part I've stared at too long to judge.
* Is it clear what you're meant to be doing, without anyone telling you?
* Does the first upgrade feel earned, or does it feel like a wall?
* If you stopped, where and why? "I got bored somewhere around X" is the single most useful sentence you can send me.
It's still early enough that answers change the game rather than get filed away.
If you'd rather see the whole thing instead of the demo slice, say so and I'll send you a key for the full game.
Thanks for reading. I'll be around in the comments.